Cite as: 518 U. S. 231 (1996)
Stevens, J., dissenting
The basic premise underlying our national labor policy is that unregulated competition among employees and applicants for employment produces wage levels that are lower than they should be.1 Whether or not the premise is true in fact, it is surely the basis for the statutes that encourage and protect the collective-bargaining process, including the express statutory exemptions from the antitrust laws that Congress enacted in order to protect union activities.2 Those statutes were enacted to enable collective action by union members to achieve wage levels that are higher than would be available in a free market. See Trainmen v. Chicago R. & I. R. Co., 353 U. S. 30, 40 (1957).
The statutory labor exemption protects the right of workers to act collectively to seek better wages, but does not
1 "The inequality of bargaining power between employees who do not possess full freedom of association or actual liberty of contract, and employers who are organized in the corporate or other forms of ownership association substantially burdens and affects the flow of commerce, and tends to aggravate recurrent business depressions, by depressing wage rates and the purchasing power of wage earners in industry and by preventing the stabilization of competitive wage rates and working conditions within and between industries." 29 U. S. C. § 151; R. Posner & F. Easter-brook, Antitrust 31 (2d ed. 1981) ("The main purpose of labor unions is to raise wages by suppressing competition among workers . . ."); see also Meat Cutters v. Jewel Tea Co., 381 U. S. 676, 723 (1965) (opinion of Goldberg, J.) ("The very purpose and effect of a labor union is to limit the power of an employer to use competition among workingmen to drive down wage rates and enforce substandard conditions of employment").
2 "The basic sources of organized labor's exemption from federal antitrust laws are §§ 6 and 20 of the Clayton Act, 38 Stat. 731 and 738, 15 U. S. C. § 17 and 29 U. S. C. § 52, and the Norris-LaGuardia Act, 47 Stat. 70, 71, and 73, 29 U. S. C. §§ 104, 105, and 113. These statutes declare that labor unions are not combinations or conspiracies in restraint of trade, and exempt specific union activities, including secondary picketing and boycotts, from the operation of the antitrust laws. See United States v. Hutcheson, 312 U. S. 219 (1941). They do not exempt concerted action or agreements between unions and nonlabor parties. Mine Workers v. Pennington, 381 U. S. 657, 662 (1965)." Connell Constr. Co. v. Plumbers, 421 U. S. 616, 621-622 (1975).
253
Page: Index Previous 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007